On Facing Life as It Is – Sunday, February 06, 1949
Sometimes in looking at the lives of others we may suppose that there, are those who lead an untroubled existence—free from the heartaches, from the reverses, free from the causes for worry and anxiety that beset the rest of us. The less we know about others, the more likely we are to make this error. We can’t tell on casual acquaintance what another man may be carrying around in his heart, but we can know with almost infallible certainty that, whoever he is and whatever he is, life has dealt with him—or will before he is through with it. We decide in the glorious and optimistic promise of our youth what we would like life to give us.
We dream our dreams; we make our plans; we write our own specifications. We decide what we would like to be, what we would like to do, where we would like to live, what we would like for our children, how we would like the days and the years to unfold—and then, the unforeseen, the unplanned intervenes: sometimes misfortune, sometimes opportunity, but almost certainly something different from what we had planned.
Few men become precisely what they expected to become. They may become something greater or something smaller but almost certainly something different. Life shapes us as we shape life and when some of the things we had our hearts set upon do not unfold for us, sometimes we go to the extreme of railing against the irrevocable. Sometimes we waste our days in wishing that something which has happened had not happened—which is entirely understandable, but not very profitable. It tends to clutter up the present with the wreckage of the past. Fighting against something that can be changed and ought to be, is thrilling. But fighting against what cannot be changed is futile.
We all learn about disappointment and regret before we’re through. And we all ought to learn also how to face life as it is and to have the faith to recover from our disappointments. Surely we must make our plans. Surely we must keep the blueprints of our dreams before us. Aimless living is intolerable. But, having done the best we can, we may find our greatest victory in what at first seemed to be our certain defeat, as Providence and forces beyond our control step in and take over, and overrule the best-laid plans of men.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, February 6, 1949, 11:30 to 12:00 noon, EST Copyright, 1949.
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February 06, 1949
Broadcast Number 1,016